Ketogenic Diets for Cancer. “What makes you think that ketone bodies will help?”

The evidence supporting carbohydrate restriction, or specifically ketogenic diets in cancer remains largely indirect and speculative. Our recent perspective summarized some of the relevant evolutionary and mechanistic factors: the central theme rests with the role of the glucose-insulin axis in promoting growth and proliferation, the predominant characteristic of cancer sells. So it has been observed for some time that patients with diabetes have higher risk of cancer. Epidemiological and other kinds of studies are generally consistent with the idea although different cancers are more or less closely associated with diabetes. Drugs employed as diabetes therapy, particularly metformin, have been found to have beneficial effects in cancer as well. Metformin reduces the risk of developing cancer although the effects on mortality are not clear cut. We made the case, in our critical review that dietary carbohydrate restriction is the first line of treatment for type 2 diabetes and the best adjunct for pharmacology in type 1 diabetes.